Storytellers had a wonderful and memorable visit to a local dairy farm, where the children learned all about where milk comes from. They were fascinated as they watched the milking parlour in action, seeing the cows being gently cupped up while the milk flowed through the tubes.

 The children discovered how farmers care for their cows, learning about the special collars the cows wear that provide important information about their health and well-being. They even had the chance to look into the huge tank where the milk is stored before enjoying a taste of delicious milk themselves.

  Exploring further, the children visited the area where the cows sleep and were curious to smell the specially prepared food that keeps them healthy. A particular highlight was the colourful disco light in the barn, much to their amusement! They learned that it plays an important role in keeping starlings away.

 There was great excitement as the children climbed into a huge tractor, bringing big smiles and lots of chatter.

 This fantastic experience helped the children to better understand where our food comes from and truly brought their learning to life. A huge thank you to Archie's family for making this special visit possible.

Caterpillar Celebration Day!

Tregantle Class celebrated National Caterpillar Day in style this week. The highlight of our celebrations was creating a paper chain caterpillar that stretched the entire length of our classroom. All of the children joined in, using good fine motor skills to carefully manipulate and glue the paper strips together. We were so pleased with the finished result and loved seeing our giant caterpillar come to life.

With perfect timing, just a few days later, our first class caterpillar hatched out of its cocoon and we now have our first butterfly. The children have been so excited to observe it, especially its lovely fluttery wings. It has been a wonderful opportunity to see real life changes happening right before our eyes.

To top it all off, we have seen some incredible writing from Tregantle children this week. They have been using their Fred Fingers to help spell words and label a spring picture. We were even impressed to see some children writing full sentences.

What an amazing week for Tregantle Class. We are so proud of all the children and their fantastic efforts.

Thank you for your continued support. Please find this week's edition of The Brunel Bulletin. 

Science: Finding the Perfect Spot for Our Solar Panel



This week, we turned into young scientists as we investigated where on the school grounds a solar panel would receive the most sunlight. Armed with our observation skills, we explored different locations, comparing how much sunlight each area received. The children thought carefully about shadows, the position of the sun, and how solar energy works. It was fantastic to see such thoughtful discussion about renewable energy and sustainability.

English: Writing Our Own Non‑Chronological Reports In English, we began planning and drafting our very own non-chronological reports all about mythical beasts. From fire-breathing dragons to shimmering water spirits, the class let their imaginations run wild while still practising how to organise factual writing clearly. We focused on using headings, subheadings, and interesting facts to help our readers learn all about these mysterious creatures. The creativity on display has been wonderful!

Maths: Fractions & Measurement Mastery Our Year 6 mathematicians have been working hard on two key skills this week:
Multiplying fractions by integers - We used visual models and real-life examples to help make sense of how fractions grow when multiplied.
Converting units of measurement - From millilitres to litres and metres to kilometres, the children have been practising how to switch confidently between units. Their resilience with these tricky concepts has been impressive!

Music: A Magical SongFest at Sterts One of the highlights of the week was Barrowbeats' brilliant trip to Sterts for SongFest. The children performed with confidence, energy, and enthusiasm-representing our school beautifully. They returned feeling proud of themselves, and rightly so! Their hard work and teamwork shone through in an incredible performance.

March

Today, Year 6 were able to join in with a fantastic online learning experience through our online resource, TTRockstars.

Gareth Metcalf, famous for his work in mathematics education, especially through the initiative, 'I See Maths', led a live Maths lesson, where the children were taught personally by him.

The objective of the lesson was to help the children to unpick mathematical word problems, with a particular focus on Key Stage 2 multi-step multiplicative word questions. Gareth showed the children how to eliminate unnecessary information, how to draw bar models to help to understand the various steps and how to make sure that the right operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication or division) were chosen.

The children also had the opportunity to create their own multi-step word problems, using given operations, aiming for a particular answer.

Year 6 really enjoyed the session and hopefully these new-found skills will add to their confidence when they do their SATs papers in May!

Welcome to the Vicious Vikings!

Welcome back after Half Term - we hope that you had some lovely family time and a chance to relax and chill; ready for new, exciting learning in Spring 2.

Our new History unit is based upon the Vikings. This week we have begun by learning at where they fit chronologically within history. The children worked in groups to order historical events, in and around the time of the Vikings, on a timeline.

Our new science topic is 'Changing Materials'. We started by considering changes of state. The children were set a conundrum: if they were to find two unlabelled bottles of water on a desert island (one sea water, one fresh water), how could they find out which was which? They successfully came up with a solution to the problem and identified that bottle A was sea water, as indicated by the salt crystals left behind after evaporation. Nothing will stop our class if they find themselves stranded in the middle of nowhere!

Smart with Switches...

This week in Science, Duckpool have been learning how electrical switches work. They also then investigated how to create their own switch using a range of given items - they could choose from things like cardboard, brass split pins, paperclips, straws and pencils.
There were some great successes and they found it very satisfying to design and create their own circuits and circuit components.

Here's a round- up of everything that's been happening at both schools in recent weeks:

Eco- Council
The Eco-council have been successful in lowering energy use in the schools. Electricity usage has reduced since their campaign to switch off more lights in rooms which are not being used has made an impact (even at this early stage.) We are using less energy this year compared to last. (January 2026b compared to January 2025.) Look out for news on battery and electronic re-cycling soon.

Mr Arnold
I will be delighted to welcome Mr Arnold into the school during the second half of the summer term for some days. This will be a great opportunity for him to get to know that staff and children better so that he can really 'hit the ground running' in September. I know that you will enjoy having him as the new Headteacher.

Valentine's Disco
Just before half term the children enjoyed a lively, fun Valentine's disco. Thank you to Mrs Wright for organising this and to staff member who helped during the afternoon/evening. £250 was raised for our school funds.

World Book Day
On 5th March we celebrated World Book Day by dressing as our favourite book characters. It was fantastic to see all of the amazing outfits- especially at the end of the day during our 'catwalk'. It was great to see so many parents supporting this event. I would like to say a special thank you to Miss Owen for organising a day full of book-related activities. Also, it was amazing that the staff all dressed as 'Golden Tickets' to match my fancy dress costume theme- what a team!

Y5/Y6 Girl's Football
On 11th March a team of our amazing girl footballers took part in a tournament in Callington, arranged by Arena. They represented the schools brilliantly, coming 5th overall. Well done girls and special thanks to Miss Jenkins for accompanying them.

Trust Music Day
On 16th March our Year 5 pupils attended a Trust music event in Liskeard. They performed the 'Copper Valley' song in St. Martin's Church for an audience of other Bridge schools. They also met Canadian singer and songwriter Luke Wallace and sang one of his compositions. Thank you to Mrs Pearce for driving the group and to Miss Gamble and Miss Jenkins for rehearsing the class.

Bag2School
Our recent Bag2School collection raised £35. Thank you to all who donated items of unwanted clothing.

Tag Rugby Festival

On 17th March a group of pupils from Y4 and Y6 represented the school in a Tag Rugby Festival, held in Tavistock.They played really well, winning two of their matches and drawing one. They represented the school very well and Mrs Hannaford, who accompanied them, was very proud of them.

Red Nose Day
On Friday 20th March the children dressed in their pyjamas and red noses and brought in a donation for Comic Relief.  Thank you, we raised £82.

My Clothing
The company which supply our school uniforms (www.myclothing.com) are having a flash spring sale. If you enter SPRING15 between 23/3/ and 29/3 you will receive 15% off your order.

 

Ahoy there me hearties! We have had a week of Pirate fun in pre-school this week.

The children thoroughly enjoyed this week's activities discovering all about pirates, decorating treasure chests, Pirate dancing, Treasure Chest Tuff tray and even finding out what our own Pirate names would be.

We enjoyed watching some videos of Ocean life and talked about all of the different types of sea creatures and fish that live deep down below the waves.  The children were amazed at some of the amazing colours and differences of fish that there are!

As well as all this we enjoyed some lovely play and exploring time outside, our big pirate flag has inspired the children to use the climbing frame as their own pirate ship, with lots of the children made to walk the plank! All good fun whilst also giving plenty of opportunity to build those gross motor skills and confidence in climbing and moving around the equipment.

Another activity the children enjoyed was our bubble shape art.  We mixed washing up liquid into our paint and using the shape cutters we practiced the names of the shapes as we made bubbles on to the paper.  The children loved popping the bubbles that appeared.

Next week we will continue with some more pirate fun and introduce some Mermaid stories and activities too.

We hope everyone enjoys the glorious spring sunshine.

The Pre-School Team.

Landaviddy

Landividdy have been enjoying the welcome arrival of the sunshine, and the extra vitamin D has certainly been working wonders in the classroom!

In English, we have been building up to our grand finale writing piece. Along the way, we have been developing key skills such as using onomatopoeia, punctuating speech correctly with speech marks, and building tension to create excitement in our writing. Using the story Traction Man as inspiration, the children have been planning and creating their own imaginative narratives. They have invented new superheroes, villains, sidekicks, and exciting settings for their stories. We have been so impressed with their creativity and the effort they have put into making their writing engaging and action-packed. We can't wait to share their final pieces! 

In Maths, we have been completing our multiplication and division unit, building our confidence with more complex calculations. This has included dividing 2-digit numbers by 1-digit numbers and learning how to work with remainders. We have also been exploring scaling and thinking about how many different combinations we can create. One of our favourite activities was investigating how many ways we could make an ice cream using different flavours and toppings.

In PSHE this term, our class have been learning about the different emergency services and the important roles they play in keeping us safe. We explored who to contact in a range of situations and discussed why each service is needed. To help us understand this better, we worked with a variety of scenario cards. These included different emergencies, and in pairs we had to decide which service would be the most appropriate to help. We thought carefully about each situation and explained our reasoning to our partners. We all really enjoyed working together and feel much more confident about what to do if an emergency ever happens.

In Design and Technology, our class has been busy planning and designing a moving volcano picture. We have been learning how to use simple mechanisms to create movement in our work. We decided to use split pins to create a lever system, which will allow the lava to pop out from the volcano. We explored different ideas and practised how to join pieces together so they can move smoothly. We are looking forward to making our final pieces and watching our volcanoes erupt!

In Science, we have been exploring how friction affects movement. We learned that friction is a force that slows things down when they move across a surface. Working in small groups, we carried out an investigation to see how different surfaces create different amounts of friction. We built a ramp and released a toy car, then measured how far it travelled across a range of surfaces. We discovered that on smoother surfaces, the car travelled further because there was less friction. On rougher surfaces, the car didn't travel as far because there was more friction slowing it down. It was a fun and practical way to learn about forces, and we enjoyed working together to test our ideas and record our results.

A huge congratulations to Iylah for being Miss Bolton's Person of the Week! I was blown away by the determination, effort, and care you took to create your narrative based on Traction Man. You included all the key components that make a piece of writing exciting, including onomatopoeia, speech marks, descriptive language, and ellipsis. It is a fantastic piece of writing that you should be very proud of. Well done!

Miss Colton picked Frankie this week for how hard he is working in handwriting - fantastic!

Another well done to Finn, who was Mrs Lister's choice for Person of the Week! She has been really impressed with your determination in class last week. You also produced a fantastic piece of writing, showing how your imagination can create a marvellous read. Well done, Finn-keep it up!

This week, Class 2 have been on so many learning adventures that we are absolutely exhausted and ready for the weekend!
 

We have finally come to the end of our unit on measurement in Maths. We have measured and compared length, heights, mass, volume, capacities and temperatures. There has really been an awful lot of stretching, walking, weighing, teeming and ladling in the classroom!!! Hopefully we have learned enough about measurement so that we can apply it to well in our portions masterclass later this term. On the other hand, Literacy lesson has been calmer as we have been writing the neat copies of our explanation text.

In Science, we looked at the life cycle of a butterfly in detail and learned some Tier 3 words associated with it - metamorphosis, chrysalis, pupa and larva. In DT, we been working with Miss Walker to design and plan our pouches. This week we have begun sewing them using simple running stitch. In Geography, we explored aerial photos of Harrowbarrow and used Google maps to zoom in on our school. We looked at OS maps of the village and identified key symbols used. We then used our learning to draw our own sketch map of the school grounds, identifying 6 key areas a visitor might want to find and adding them to the map. We also created our own keys to represent these key areas. In between all this, we also managed to learn about another Patron Saint - St Patrick. 

However, the highlight of the week has to be our second visit to Haye farm. It was a gloriously sunny day and we had oodles of fun exploring the farm again and meeting some of the new additions to the farmyard since our last visit. Please look below for some photos from the day.

A very well done to:
> Jane for getting the Ready Award for her hard work and amazing progress in Maths.
> Roux for getting the Respectful Award for his exemplary behaviour during our trip on Wednesday.
> Roma for being nominated by the Positive Potato Police for the Safe Award for checking on her friends during playtime.